The joy of Desire: Understanding Levinas’s Desire of the Other as gift

In this paper, I argue that if we understand Levinas’s Desire of the Other as gift, we can understand it as joyful—that is, as celebratory. After presenting Levinas’s conception of Desire, I consider his claim, found in Otherwise than Being, that the self is a hostage to the Other, and I contend that, paradoxical as it may seem, being a hostage to the Other is actually liberating. Then, drawing on insights Richard Kearney offers in Reimagining the Sacred, I argue for understanding Desire as a gift that is the condition of possibility for joy. If I offer hospitality to the Other, I thereby accept the gift that makes joy possible, and this joy is not egoistic but is the proper response to the gift. Finally, I ask whether Desire can be joyful in practice, given that the pure gift is an originary condition and never a historical one, and I conclude that imperfect joy remains possible. Moreover, this imperfect joy is better than any solitary enjoyment I might experience in the total absence of the Other.     

Words that reveal: Jean-Yves Lacoste and the experience of God

Much of the contemporary discussion of religion seems to do away with the very possibility of revelation. In this article, I use Lacoste’s phenomenology of la parole to rethink a theology of revelation in terms of God’s personal self-giving in experience. After examining Lacoste’s views of the relationship between philosophy and theology, his liturgical reduction and what this means for an understanding of experience and knowledge, and his thought of la parole more broadly, I give critical consideration to how he thinks the possibility of God’s address to humanity. Lacoste maintains that God’s presence in experience may be known through affection, and, indeed, that the word may so move us that we are able to recognise that presence. He uses the notion of self-evidence rather than the usual phenomenological category of evidence to evince the reasonableness of this response. I argue that while Lacoste accords due deference to a traditional understanding of revelation as the repetition or unfolding of a word addressed to us in the past, his thought also allows us to think revelation as a contemporary event, the hermeneutics of which allow us to know God in ways that are new.     

Postpartum Food Traditions of Bhutanese Refugee Women: a Qualitative Study

Bhutanese refugees represent one of Canada’s most recent immigrant populations, and little is known about their dietary traditions and habits. The purpose of this study was to improve the wellbeing and health of re-settled refugee Bhutanese women by understanding how culturally informed postpartum food choices are practiced post-migration. As part of a larger community-based participatory research project, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 Bhutanese refugee women. The traditional dietary choices that Bhutanese women revealed to be important in the postpartum period were organized into five themes: (1) “foods consumed as part of a regular healthy diet,” (2) “foods to regain strength and heal the body,” (3) “foods to ward off back and joint pain,” (4) “foods to promote lactation,” (5) “foods avoided due to negative effects.” Traditional foods and culturally situated beliefs in the postpartum period play a significant role in the lives of Bhutanese women. Healthcare workers in countries of re-settlement should work with the traditional health and nutritional beliefs of women in this community in order to provide optimal dietary and health recommendations.     

Rhesus monkeys (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Macaca mulatta</Emphasis>) remember agency information from past events and integrate this knowledge with spatial and temporal features in working memory

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether rhesus monkeys remember information about their own agency—along with spatial, temporal and contextual properties—from a previously experienced event. In Experiment 1, rhesus monkeys (n = 4) used symbols to reliably indicate whether they had performed or observed an event on a computer screen. In Experiment 2, naïve and experienced monkeys (n = 8) reported agency information when stringent controls for perceptual and proprioceptive cues were included. In Experiment 3, five of the monkeys completed a task in which they reported agency information along with spatial and temporal features of events. Two monkeys performed this agency discrimination when they could not anticipate which memory test they would receive. There was also evidence that these features were integrated in memory. Implications of this research are discussed in relation to working memory, episodic memory and self-awareness in nonhuman animals.     

Segmented Paths? Mexican Generational Differences in the Transition to First-Time Homeownership in the United States

Homeownership represents an important indicator of immigrant incorporation and assimilation. This study is a longitudinal analysis of the transition to first-time homeownership among a cohort of youths followed from 1979 to 2009 using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY, 1979). In particular, I examine Mexican generational group differences in the transition to first-time homeownership over an observation period that spans 30 years while evaluating theories of straight-line and segmented assimilation. I find that Mexican homeownership rates do not increase in a linear fashion across generations, relative to native, non-Hispanic whites, even after controlling for various social, demographic, and economic characteristics. Furthermore, analyses limited to Mexicans reveal that first- and second-generation respondents exhibit more success in the transition to first-time homeownership than their third-generation counterparts. Contrary to observing linear gains in homeownership across generations, I find that Mexicans are experiencing segmented paths towards homeownership and achieving upward mobility across generations.     

Canadian Arab Youth at the Border: Cultural Dissociation,Fear Management,and Disciplining Practices in Securitized Spaces

In this paper, we explore what Canadian Arab youth do to navigate border and travel transit sites. Arab youth are the focus for this study because they are a neglected demographic of research in ethnic studies, compared to the more copious studies on Canadian Arabs. Our research empirically investigates the struggles that this youth demographic faces, and the efforts they undertake to manage their marginalization. Some of these efforts involve practices of cultural dissociation, fear management, and self-disciplining through behavioral self-surveillance. Drawing upon an existing body of research that recognizes the highly fraught and securitized nature of air travel and border transfer, particularly for Arab/Muslim populations, we use the findings from focus groups conducted in Kitchener-Waterloo to theoretically situate some of the real struggles of Canadian Arab youth. As prominent racialized and securitized identities in the War on Terror (WoT), Arab youth are often forced, or feel that they are forced to perform their Canadian-ness to substantiate their innocence, and in some cases, this requires minimalization, or even erasure of part of who they are.     

Consequences of the American States’ Legislative Action on Immigration

Over the past decade, US states have responded to federal inaction on comprehensive immigration reform by increasing their output of immigrant policies, both beneficial and restrictive. Although there is a growing empirical literature focused on predicting such activity by states, less is known, especially on a broad scale, about the state-level consequences associated with the policy tone states adopt toward immigrants. To better understand the consequences of restrictive immigrant policies, we created a restrictive score for each state year between 2005 and 2014 and employed linear regression with panel-corrected standard errors to investigate effects on immigrant-related demographics, economic factors, and political participation. We found that states with higher restrictive policy tones do experience reductions in the number of foreign-born residents, including Hispanics and those with limited English proficiency, a goal of many state legislators who favor restrictive policies. States with restrictive policy tones showed reductions in unemployment and poverty rates as well, which are also professed goals for restrictive policy activity. Mediation analyses suggested that the effects of restrictive policy scores on economic conditions are indirect, being exerted through the percentage of a state’s population that is foreign born. Finally, though much attention is focused on the expected increase in Latino political clout, restrictive policy tone was not predictive of increased voter registration or voting in states that pass these types of policies. If anti-immigrant policies are inducing those who oppose these policies to mobilize politically, it must be in an arena outside of voting.     

Consequences of International Migration on the Size and Composition of Religious Groups in Austria

Scientific knowledge on a population’s religious composition is essential to understand the challenges faced by societies today. It arises in opposition to speculations about the actual size of religious groups that have been increasingly present in the public discourse in Europe for many years. This is particularly the case in Austria where the flows of refugees and migrants coming from the Middle East and Afghanistan have intensified since 2011 and culminated in 2015. These sparked a debate on the actual size of the Muslim population in Austria. This study fills the gap by presenting estimates of the religious composition for 2016 and projections until 2046 based on several scenarios related to the three major forces affecting the religious composition: migration (including asylum seekers), differential fertility and secularisation. The projections demonstrate that religious diversity is bound to increase, mostly through immigration and fertility. We further focus on the role and implications of international migration on the age and sex composition within the six religious groups: Roman Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Muslims, other religions and unaffiliated. We find that the volume and composition of international migrants can maintain youthful age compositions in minority religions—Muslims and Orthodox. Sustained immigration leads to slower ageing but does not stop or reverse the process. The disparity between older majority and younger minority religious groups will further increase the cultural generation gap.     

Moved by the Masses: A Social Identity Perspective on Inspiration

Inspiration is a state, evoked from some source, which creates a form of approach motivation within an individual to work toward a goal, usually associated with a creative task or product. Previous research has explored inspiration as a trait which varies in the level of intensity and frequency that one is inspired by a given source. The present research views inspiration from a social identity perspective. In Study 1, we examined the associations between ingroup identification and both state and trait inspiration. In Study 2, we manipulated salient group identity and examined ingroup identification as a mediator of salient identity and felt inspiration. In Study 3, we manipulated outgroup comparisons to examine inspiration change. Combined, the present research offers insight into how one’s group influences how ingroup members are inspired.     

Adaptation and Validation of the Inventory of Everyday Hassles of Students in Romanian

Students who are admitted to university have to get accustomed to and then assimilate the codes of their new life, progressively acquiring a new social status and a new identity. There is no tool in Romanian to measure students’ perceived stress. This article presents the results of a series of five studies to validate a scale of Everyday Hassles of Romanian Students. Seven hundred and seventy seven Romanian students enrolled in a university program either in Engineering or the Humanities participated in the studies. The results revealed that the questionnaire of Everyday Hassles of Romanian Students had a six-factor structure. It had acceptable reliability and validity values. With regard to reliability, its scales showed high levels of internal consistency and temporal stability over a time span of three weeks. The results seem equally encouraging in terms of validity. Further investigations, particularly studies of convergence and discrimination, are required to identify more precisely the construct validity of the tool.